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Black Like Me

Racism between blacks and whites is something that has plagued the United States for a long time, and still does today. The autobiography, Black Like Me is about a man named John Howard Griffin. He is a middle-aged white southerner with a passionate commitment to social justice. Griffin undergoes a series of medical therapy to change the color of his skin so that he looks like a black man. As he travels throughout the south he realizes what it is like to be a black man in the racist south of 1956. Griffin wants to experience first hand the hardships and obstacles of being a black man in the United States. He changes the color of his skin and heads to New Orleans. Adele Jackson, the editor of a black oriented magazine called Sepia, offers to fund his trip in exchange for an article about his life as a black man. Griffin expects to be treated differently but is shocked to find out the extent of prejudice, hardship, and oppression he encounters. As he is walking through the poor streets of New Orleans he wonders how he is going to fit into the community. He knew he needed a contact. After scouting out the black section of New Orleans he meets Sterling Williams, a black man who shines shoes. Sterling helps Griffin get familiar to black society in the south. Griffin's experience as a black man frequently leaves him depressed, confused, and alone. One of the only comforts of this experience was how other blacks were extraordinarily generous and supportive of him. Griffin also finds that even in a world of social injustice, good people can exist and flourish. P.D. East, a construction worker from Alabama, and Sterling Williams, the shoe shiner are proof that even though racism can warp the human spirit, it cannot destroy the human capacity for love and kindness. John Howard Griffin did what most likely no white man has ever done; He put himself in the shoes of a black man and walked the mile. In the end Griffin argues that love and tolerance are the only catalysts...

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...darkened his skin using drugs and a sun lamp to pass for a black man. He then toured Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana by buses and hitchhiking. Griffin recorded his experiences in his book BlackLikeMe, first published in 1961 (Karr). This was a positive experiment because by publishing his experiences it crossed racial lines and made Caucasian people, as well as African Americans, rethink their views.
Griffin was born and raised in Mansfield, Texas and in 1969, he persuaded Sepia Magazine to finance and publish an experiment where he toured the southern states disguised as an African-American (Karr). He started his experiment in New Orleans, where he found a dermatologist who would help transform him into an African-American using the drug Methoxsalen, as well as sun lamps and dye (Griffin, 2-7). While in New Orleans, Griffin sees the impact and effect of racism, first hand. He goes to look for a job as a very well-dressed black man but no white man will hire him (Griffin, 40). Griffin also gets kicked out of non-segregated areas by white people and gets degrading glares from Caucasians (Griffin, 45).
At that time, Mississippi had a reputation of being the most racist and the hardest place for African-Americans to live in the United States, so Griffin travelled there next. Griffin encountered many different types of people as he toured Mississippi and Alabama. Some Caucasian people...

...BlackLikeMe and Crash
In 1959 John Howard Griffin, the author of the book BlackLikeMe, disguised himself as an African American and decided to go live out in society to see what it would be like to be a black man. The book BlackLikeMe is his documentation of that experience. His story spread around the world and he got a lot of praise from people around the world, but he also got a good amount if hate from the white power groups who were quite prevalent at the time. Now, much time has passed and many people say the days of racism are over. That is a completely untrue statement. The movie Crash depicts modern day racism and shows how prevalent it really is in today’s society. Both of these works can relate to one another in many ways and really show how racism truly is.
The book BlackLikeMe and the film Crash have many connections that can be drawn to one another. For one, the main focus of the two works is racism, but they take place in very different times. BlackLikeMe takes place back when racism was very blatant and obvious. Crash shows how modern day racism is not a blatant, but still very prevalent in deeply held stereotypes and beliefs. Although BlackLikeMe only focuses of...

...May 9, 2012
BlackLikeMeBlackLikeMe is a non-fiction book written by John Howard Griffin about what a black, middle-aged man has to go through every day in the Deep South. To find out what it is like to be a Negro, Griffin changes his skin color to that of a black. During his experiences, Griffin keeps a journal and that is what this book is. BlackLikeMe is a journal of Griffin's feelings, experiences, pains, and friends.
The setting of BlackLikeMe is intensely important. The setting starts out on October 28, 1959 in Mansfield, Texas. The setting in BlackLikeMe is so important because if the setting is any other place than the Southern United States then the plot is completely different. If the setting is in the north, then the issue of racism is not known. After getting the support of his wife and of George Levitan, the editor of a black-oriented magazine called Sepia which will fund Griffin's experience in return for an article about it, Griffin sets out for New Orleans to begin his life as a black man. He finds a person in the black community; an articulate shoe-shiner named Sterling Williams, and begins a dermatological regimen of...

...Jacalin De La Rosa
Dr. Forss
31 October 2011
BlackLikeMe
“In the flood of the light against white tile, the face and shoulders of a stranger- a fierce, bald, very dark Negro- glared at me from the glass… All the traces of the John Griffin I had been were wiped from existence.” This is just the start of the transformation John Griffin had to go through to create the ultimate sociological experiment in the 1950’s. Within the book BlackLikeMe, by John Howard Griffin, it can be argue that discrimination truly existed amongst the white citizen and black citizens, segregation existed beyond true realization, and persecution was wrongly institutionalized. The narrative writing of John Griffin goes into great depth of these very points revealing the life of a black man in the south.
BlackLikeMe is a book placing John Howard Griffin, the author in the deep south with one question running around in his head. “If a white man became a Negro in the Deep South, what adjustments would he have to make?” John sets out to answer that question, going about the medical transformation of changing his skin color to black and dumping himself into the south with no knowledge of what was to come. John Griffin’s writing is filled with interesting information showing different struggles that...

...Sept. 10, 2011
BlackLikeMe (Second Edition) By John Howard Griffin 1960
In the late 1950’s John Griffin, a white journalist and specialist on race issues from Texas, made the decision to experience the racial south as a black man in order to help him more understand the suicide rates. John documented his life changing experience first-hand as a Negro and the discrimination based on skin color.
After an agreement with Sephia magazine to fund the project in exchange for the right to print experts from the book, although they felt John was putting himself in a dangerous situation, John told his wife that he would change his skin color and travel the South. John first arrived in New Orleans and while staying at a white friend’s house he begins taking pills and staying under ultra violet lights, covering and scrubbing his body with stain, and shaving his head John began his journey as a Negro. He did not change anything else about himself. He kept his name and did not change his wardrobe, speech patterns, or references and every question was answered truthfully. He made sure not to involve anyone that offered their help in order to protect them from racism.
In the white part of New Orleans he finds that he is not treated equally. He cannot go in restaurants or stores that he could as a white man. When he offers a white woman a seat on the bus he is faced with the challenge not to offend the blacks in...

...In the novel, BlackLikeMe, John Howard Griffin was invested in racial fairness. He did not think it was fair for Caucasians should be superior to African Americans. In this novel, he is the main character and he goes to get a temporary darkening color of himself to set himself out into the world through a different point of view. He was also allied with a magazine that would document his whole experience. John Griffin expected to find prejudice, cruelty and hardship but he didn’t think it was going to be as difficult as it was. He was shocked to see how bad it was. Everywhere he steeped foot or went he experienced difficulty and he was insulted whenever he was out in public. The word "nigger" seems to be spoken from every street corner. It is impossible to find a job, or even a restroom that blacks are allowed to use. Many white bullies would try to attack him and they would make rude comments or attack him physically. After several traumatic days in New Orleans, Griffin decides to travel to Mississippi and Alabama, which are supposed to be even worse for blacks. He basically learned how being an African American and having to live in the conditions that do are appalling. He had felt as though he could not continue his life as a black man and he had only been a black man for a couple of weeks! Many of the African American community were trying to get freedom under the...

...BlackLikeme
The book BlackLikeMe by John Howard Griffin is a moving true story of how a white man manages to experience what it is like to be a “Negro” or black person in the 1950s. The author did this social experiment by taking medication and dying his skin a deep brown. He wanted to really experience the challenges and changes a black man in this time would go through. By traveling through the far south, Griffin got a taste of what real life was for a Negro.
The experiment starts in the 1950’s and continues through the 1960’s. Griffin was a journalist seeking an opportunity to truly get to know what life was like for a Black person, especially in the South. At the time he was a middle-aged white man and grew up in Texas, where he lived with his wife and children. After deciding to start this dramatic experiment, he told his wife that he was going to change his skin color from white to black. She understood that it was something he had to do, and agreed that he should do it. Griffin writes, “For years the idea haunted me…” (1). He wanted to really feel what it would be like to be a black man in America. Griffen began his search in 1959 for help to achieve the color change. He wrote, “Arrived by plane as night set in. I checked my bags at the Hotel Monteleone...

...BlackLikeMe is about a middle aged white man living in Texas in the late 50’s and early 60’s. He is deeply committed to the cause of racial injustice. He decides to temporarily become a black man and sets out to explore the racial injustice a African American deals with on a daily basis. After this experiment he realizes that racism is a result of social condition, and not any inherent quality within blacks or whites. He pleads for tolerance and understanding between the races.
The author and main character is John Howard Griffin, He writes about his experience as he travels around southern America after dying his skin black. He tells us how he gets treated as an African American. He wanted to experience firsthand the injustices and hardships black people had to struggle through and their experience of life. As he continues his journey he starts switching back and forth between races and comes to the conclusion that the races don’t understand each other at all and the need to start tolerating each other.
When he begins to alter back and forth between races he notices immediately that when he’s white almost everyone treats him with respect but the blacks treat him with fear and suspiciousness. When he is black, the African Americans treat him with warmth and generosity while white people treat him with hostility and contempt.
How the...